Divorce is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the bonds of matrimony between a married couple under the rule of law of the particular country or state. It can be said to be a legal dissolution of a marriage by a court or other competent body. It is the legal process of ending a marriage.
The Uniform Civil Code is a proposal in India to formulate and implement personal laws of citizens which apply on all citizens equally regardless of their religion, gender and sexual orientation. Currently, personal laws of various communities are governed by their religious scriptures. Implementation of a uniform civil code across the nation is one of the contentious promises pursued by India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. Personal laws are distinguished from public law and cover marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption and maintenance. While Article 25-28 of the Indian Constitution guarantees religious freedom to Indian citizens and allows religious groups to maintain their own affairs, article 44 of the constitution expects the Indian state to apply directive principles and common law for all Indian citizens while formulating national policies.
Mohd. Ahmad Khan v. Shah Bano Begum [1985 (1) SCALE 767 = 1985 (3) SCR 844 = 1985 (2) SCC 556 = AIR 1985 SC 945], commonly referred to as the Shah Bano case, was a controversial maintenance lawsuit in India, in which the Supreme Court delivered a judgment favouring maintenance given to an aggrieved divorced Muslim woman. Then the Congress government enacted a law with its most controversial aspect being the right to maintenance for the period of iddat after the divorce, and shifting the onus of maintaining her to her relatives or the Waqf Board. It was seen as discriminatory as it denied right to basic maintenance available to Muslim women under secular law.
The status of women in India has been subject to many changes over the time of recorded India's history. Their position in society deteriorated early in India's ancient period, especially in the Indo-Aryan speaking regions, and their subordination continued to be reified well into India's early modern period.
Nikah halala, also known as tahleel marriage, is a practice in which a woman, after being divorced by triple talaq, marries another man, consummates the marriage, and gets divorced again in order to be able to remarry her former husband. Nikah means marriage and halala means to make something halal, or permissible. This form of marriage is haram (forbidden) according to the hadith of Islamic prophet Muhammad. Nikah halala is practiced by a small minority of Muslims, mainly in countries that recognise the triple talaq.
Divorce according to Islamic law can occur in a variety of forms, some initiated by a husband and some by a wife. The main categories of Islamic customary law are talaq, khulʿ and faskh. Historically, the rules of divorce were governed by sharia, as interpreted by traditional Islamic jurisprudence, though they differed depending on the legal school, and historical practices sometimes diverged from legal theory.
Mr. & Mrs. '55 is a 1955 Indian romantic comedy film directed and produced by Guru Dutt, from a screenplay written by Abrar Alvi. A socially critical film set in urban Mumbai, it stars Madhubala as Anita Verma, a naive heiress who is forced into a marriage with an unemployed cartoonist to save her millions.
In modern society, the role of marriage and its termination through divorce have become political issues. As people live increasingly mobile lives, the conflict of laws and its choice of law rules are highly relevant to determine:
Indira Jaising is an Indian lawyer and activist. Jaising also runs Lawyers' Collective, a non-governmental organization (NGO), the license of which was permanently cancelled by the Home Ministry for alleged violations of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act in 2019. The Bombay High Court later passed an order to de-freeze NGO's domestic accounts. The case is ongoing in the Supreme Court of India.
Arif Mohammad Khan is an Indian politician belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He is currently the Governor of Kerala. He is a former Union Minister. He has held several portfolios ranging from energy to civil aviation.
Khulʿ (Arabic: خلع, also called khula, is a procedure based on traditional jurisprudence, that allows a Muslim woman to initiate a divorce by returning the mahr and everything she received from him during their life together, or without returning anything, as agreed by the spouses or judge's decree, depending on the circumstances.
Ravi Shankar Prasad is an Indian politician and lawyer, from the Bharatiya Janata Party. A Member of Parliament since 2000, first in the Rajya Sabha (2000–2019) and then in the Lok Sabha, Prasad has served as Union Minister multiple times: As Minister of State, he served in the ministries of Coal (2001–2003), Law and Justice (2002–2003), and Information and Broadcasting (2003–2004) under Atal Bihari Vajpayee's premiership; as Cabinet Minister, he held the Law and Justice, Communications, and Electronics and Information Technology (2014–2021) portfolios under Narendra Modi's premiership.
The Hindu Marriage Act (HMA) is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted in 1955 which was passed on 18th of May. Three other important acts were also enacted as part of the Hindu Code Bills during this time: the Hindu Succession Act (1956), the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act (1956), the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act (1956).
Holy Deadlock is a 1934 satirical novel by the English author A. P. Herbert, which aimed to highlight the perceived inadequacies and absurdities of contemporary divorce law. The book took a particularly lenient view of the need for divorces, which it characterised as "a relief from misfortune, not a crime", and demonstrated how the current system created an environment which encouraged the participants to commit perjury and adultery. The book was a major element in the popular debate about the liberalisation of divorce law in the mid-1930s, and helped pave the way for the 1937 statutory reforms.
Jagdish Singh Khehar is a former senior advocate and a former judge, who served as the 44th Chief Justice of India in 2017. Khehar is the first chief justice from the Sikh community. He has been a judge in Supreme Court of India from 13 September 2011 to 27 August 2017 upon superannuation. He served for a brief period but gave many landmark judgements such as the Triple Talaq and the Right to Privacy verdict. He was succeeded by Justice Dipak Misra.
Lily Isabel Thomas was an Indian lawyer who initiated improvement and change to existing laws by filing petitions in India's apex court, the Supreme Court of India and regional courts. Her petitions resulted in changes to laws to prevent convicted politicians getting elected, the addition of a new marriage law and protections for parliamentarians. She was hailed most notably for petitioning to amend the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
Triple talaq and talaq-e-mughallazah are now-banned means of Islamic divorce previously available to Muslims in India, especially adherents of Hanafi Sunni Islamic schools of jurisprudence. A Muslim man could legally divorce his wife by proclaiming three times consecutively the word talaq.
All the Muslims in India are governed by the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937. This law deals with marriage, succession, inheritance and charities among Muslims. The Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939 deals with the circumstances in which Muslim women can obtain divorce and rights of Muslim women who have been divorced by their husbands and to provide for related matters. These laws are not applicable in the state of Goa, where Goa civil code is applicable for all persons irrespective of religion. These laws are not applicable to Indians, including Muslims, who married under the Special Marriage Act, 1954.
Geeta Luthra is a Senior Advocate in the Supreme Court of India.
Shalu Nigam is an Indian lawyer, feminist legal scholar, and author. She was the petitioner in the landmark case Shalu Nigam v. Regional Passport Officer, decided on 17 May 2016, which held that passports can be issued without requiring the name of the father.
